This morning, a group of our limpest lawmakers in the Senate Judiciary Committee have gathered together to praise Sessions, a man with a documented history of racism, or else say a couple mean things about him before voting to confirm him.

Now Sessions' confirmation will be up for a vote in the entire Senate.

"Not one order idea or pronouncement is meant to bring this country together; they only serve to drive us further apart", said Sen.

During Sally Yates' confirmation hearing for U.S. deputy attorney general in 2015, he grilled her over whether she would refuse to back the president if what he wanted was illegal.

Just a few hours later, the Trump administration delivered her a handwritten letter-she was sacked and being replaced with U.S. attorney Dana J. Boente the day before Jeff Sessions, a man who was once voted too racist to be a judge, could become Attorney General.

Boente's first act after being hastily sworn in was to issue an order to ensure Trump's executive orders were carried out by Justice Departments.

Durbin spoke for nearly 30 minutes at the committee meeting, where the vote is likely to split along party lines with the Republicans prevailing.

"We've got [attorney general nominee] Jeff Sessions, who we're told was involved somehow in the drafting of these executive orders", said Faiz Shakir, political director for the ACLU.

Wade Henderson is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. Chuck Schumer of NY, announced that he and his colleagues would scrutinize the Trump Cabinet appointees over their views on the immigration ban. "In response, Sen. Sessions said, 'the records do not show that there were twenty or thirty actually filed cases, '" Franken recalled.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she couldn't vote for Sessions because he wouldn't stand up to the president as Yates did. Al Franken focused on forcefully in his statement against Sessions, as well as Trump's ridiculous claim that 3 to 5 million people fraudulently voted in this election. Such a speech is unusual in a body where members' obsession with treating one another politely has meant no sitting Senator ever testified against a colleague's cabinet nomination prior to Sessions' own hearing.

Ron Hosko, president of the nonprofit Law Enforcement Action Network and former Federal Bureau of Investigation assistant director, sent a letter in support of Sessions to the Judiciary Committee on Monday and said 20,000 members or supporters of the law enforcement community were backing his nomination.